Variables that I am going to change
- I am going to be changing the potato piece.
- I am going to be changing the solution.
- I am going to change the stirrer.
What I am going to be measuring during my experiment
- I will be measuring the mass of each of the potato pieces.
Prediction with scientific explanation
My prediction is that the higher the concentration of sugar solution the lower the mass of the potato will be. This is because the holes in the potato are too tiny to let sugar molecules in and as osmosis’s definition at the top says the concentration of the solution has to be even on both sides of the semi permeable membrane so all the water molecules will go into the potato and all the sugar molecules will stay out.
In the plain water I think that the water is less concentrated in the solution so the less sugar molecules means the more water the potato can take in. Which means the potato, in my opinion will be the largest in mass.
I think in the 5ml sugar solution the mass of the potato will decrease in mass as there is a big difference in the concentration gradient therefore the mass will decrease at least enough for us to notice.
This is what I hope is going to happen in my experiment. The higher the concentration of water outside the potato the more turgid the potato will become. The lower the concentration of water outside the potato becomes the more placid the potato will become.
But I think that part of my prediction will be wrong as there will be a point of equilibrium in the solution and in the potato therefore there will be no change in the potato.
Apparatus I will be using
- Water
- Sugar
- 5 Test Tubes
- 1 Test Tube rack
- Measuring conical
- Tweezers
- Timer
- Cork Borer
- Potato
- Weighing scale
- Labels
- Paper Towels
- Potato Peeler
Safety procedures:
Safety plays a big role in any experiment weather you are using dangerous equipment or not. My safety precautions will be:-
- Use Cork Borer sensibly and make sure it has a rubber handle.
- Make sure none of the solutions get into eyes or onto clothes. To prevent this from happening I will be wearing eye protection and an apron.
Method
- First I am going to wash my hands.
- I am then going to make my sugar solutions. I will do this by keeping the same amounts of water in each of the 5 test tubes. Then I will add the sugar necessary to conduct my experiment to each of the test tubes.
- I am then going to peel the potato.
- I will then use my cork borer and cut out 5 potato pieces from the same potato and I will make sure they are exactly the same.
- I will make sure the weighing scale is clean incase other substance react with my sugar solutions.
- I will not touch the pieces of potato with my hand as it would make it unfair, so I will use the tweezers. I will then weigh each piece of potato just to make sure that they have the same mass.
- After I have recorded the mass for each piece I will put all the pieces into there specified test tubes at exactly the same time.
- I will start the timer.
- After 10 minutes is up I will lay out each of the potato pieces onto a paper towel and then I will lay another paper towel on top of the potato pieces. I will gently dry each of them.
- Again I will clean the scale and weigh each potato piece separately and I will record the results.
- I will then clean up all of my work and draw a results table.
